WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Down the Dirt Road => Topic started by: dj on March 10, 2011, 02:13:22 PM
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If you don't have at least one book by Paul Oliver on your shelf, you're not serious about the blues.
Here's (http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19980129052945/http://www.bluesworld.com/PAULOLIVER.HTML) a link to a tribute to Paul published 14 years ago on his 70th birthday. There are brief tributes by a who's-who of blues scholars and a bibliography of Paul's blues writings. The man was incredibly prolific. I think that if you were to make a list of the 10 most important and influential books on the blues, Oliver would be the only person with multiple titles listed.
(On a personal note, even though I'm interested in architecture, every time I look at a Paul Oliver bibliography I'm a bit sad that he spent so much time writing about that subject. What I wouldn't give for a few more books as good as Blues Fell This Morning, Screening The Blues, and Songsters And Saints!)
(Edited to correct mistakes, as a fellow weenie has pointed out to me that while spell check is fine with words, it's not very good at numbers!)
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A man's got to make a living! Vernacular architecture was his main shtick with the blues a side project. Consider that!!
pbl
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All of Paul's blues records, tapes, books, magazines, interviews, ephemera etc are now housed here:
http://resources.glos.ac.uk/departments/lis/archives/collections/paul-oliver.cfm
In a 2000 Christmas card there was a message which read "I've been working on another book! The Blues The World Forgot". A card in 2008 said "slowly moving on TBTWF" but not heard anything about it since. I feel certain that Oliver has mentioned this in interview but can't recall where.